Most locators on the market today have a conical head. These heads are solid body and when the head wears out the whole locator must be discarded. Thus, one of the objectives of this invention is to create a locator with interchangeable parts that only the part that wears out needs to be thrown away and the whole locator will work for a great number more cycles in the manufacturing process. Another problem with these locators are that one must insure that the locator is lined up perpendicular to the bore. If one is not precisely perpendicular to the bore the locator will mislocate the center. Thus one of the objectives of this invention to create a locator that will precisely locate the center of the work piece. Another problem with the old style locators is that the work piece need to be machined to a specific tolerance or will not perform properly. Thus one of the objectives of this invention is to create a locator that does not need a highly precise tolerance and has a much larger tolerance yet performs a more precise job of locating work piece. Also the tolerance of the work piece can be larger since the locator does a more precise job location. Another advantage of this invention that is not present in the previous art is that this locator can be ganged. In other words the locator can be used to locate the centers of two or more bores. Also one locator could be placed upon another locator to locate the centers of the two bores in which they fit. Also unlike previous art this locator can be used as a gauge to measure the precise diameter of a bore. It also could be ganged as a gauge and measure the diameter and taper of a conical surface. The invention has been designed to work in a dirty, high temperature environment at high temperature.
Another advantage of this invention that is not seen in the prior art is this invention can be spring loaded, hydraulic loaded, or electrically mechanically loaded. The invention can provide feedback as to the size of the bore. Further, this invention, unlike the previous art, can clamp the work piece into position and thus not only locate the work piece but hold it in position. The locator can be designed to not only locate a bore but also a shaft and a cylinder in a shaft.